THE SEMANTICS OF THE BCS AND BULGARIAN MOTION VERBS DOĆI AND DOJDA ‘TO

COME, ARRIVE’: A CONTRASTIVE CORPUS-BASED STUDY

LJILJANA ŠARIĆ & IVELINA TCHIZMAROVAUniversity of Oslo & Simon Fraser University

ABSTRACT

The verbs doći in Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian (= BCS) and dojda in Bulgarian

(= Blg.) are among the most frequent motion verbs. They are used in both

concrete contexts (of human motion and motion of various objects) and

metaphorical contexts in which features of concrete motion are

transferred into abstract domains. A semantic examination of such verbs

may reveal tendencies related to universal and language-specific meaning

extensions of motion verbs. Our contrastive semantic study is based on a

small parallel corpus of BCS literary texts and their Blg. translations.

We examine contexts in which BCS doći relates to Bulgarian dojda, and

those in which BCS doći relates to other Bulgarian verbs or phrases

(implying either spatial notions such as ‘go out’, ‘go down’, ‘return’,

‘come nearer’, and ‘appear’, or some non-spatial notions such as ‘take a

deep breath’, ‘come to one’s senses’, etc.). Our questions are: What are

the differences in the semantic networks of these two seemingly very

similar verbs in very closely related languages? In which situations with

concrete and abstract motion are doći and dojda “perfect matches,” and in

which ones are they less perfect matches? Which metaphorical extensions

are common, and which are limited to one language only, and how can this

be explained? What facts about verbal (near-)synonymy does a parallel

corpus study reveal?

1. INTRODUCTION: CORPUS AND METHOD

The aim of this analysis is to show the advantages of using parallel

corpora in studying the semantics of spatial expressions in closely

related languages—in our case, two South Slavic languages: BCS and

1

Bulgarian. We focus on one of the most frequent motion verbs in these

languages, doći and dojda ‘to come/arrive’.1

For the purposes of our analysis, the most useful material is

original BCS texts translated into Blg. or Blg. texts translated into

BCS. A few parallel corpora available on the internet include texts in

several Slavic languages (Intercorp, RuN, ParaSol2); however, in these

corpora, we initially found only one source translated from BCS into

Blg.3 and no source translated from Blg. into BCS. Fortunately, we found

some other electronically available BCS texts and their Blg.

translations4 that we used to compile our small parallel corpus

consisting of six BCS literary texts (all novels) translated into Blg.

The corpus is presented in Table 1.

BCS originals Bulgariantranslations

Abbreviations

Total words(originals)

Andrić, Ivo: Prokleta avlija

Прокълнатият двор PA 26,519

Brlić-Mažuranić, Ivana:Čudnovate zgode šegrta Hlapića

Чудните приключения на чирака Хлапич

ŠH 25,618

Kapor, Momo: Foliranti Фолиранти Fol 62,830

Kapor, Momo: Provincijalac Провинциалист Pro 69,109

Krleža, Miroslav: Povratak Filipa Latinovicza

Завръщането на Филип Латинович

PFL 66,073

Pavić, Milorad: Hazarski Хазарски речник Haz 88,318

1 This analysis is part of a larger project examining verbs prefixed with od-/ot-and do- in BCS and Blg. These verbs construe motion events expressing a concreteor abstract source of motion (od-/ot-), or a concrete or abstract goal of motion(do-).2Available at: http://www.korpus.cz/intercorp/ (Intercorp);http://parasol.unibe.ch/ (A Parallel Corpus of Slavic and Other Languages);http://www.hf.uio.no/ilos/english/research/projects/run/corpus/ (RuN).3 Hazarski rečnik by Milorad Pavić in ParaSol. However, only part of the exampleswith the BCS verb doći (pf.) / dolaziti (impf.) were useful because of theerroneous parallel alignment.4 We would like to express our gratitude to Harry Stojanov, who gave uspermission to use his Bulgarian translations of a few BCS literary texts andprovided us with the files, and to Kjetil Rå Hauge, who helped us compile ourcorpus.

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rečnik

Total: 338,467

Table 1: The corpus used in this study

We extracted the examples with all the morphological forms of the BCS

verb doći (pf.) and dolaziti (impf.) and the parallel Blg. examples with

dojda (pf.) and idvam (impf.).5 We also extracted the Blg. examples with

dojda and the corresponding BCS sentences that do not contain doći. The

corpus sample in Table 2 shows what our data look like—the leftmost

column shows the lemma searched for (doći in the Serbian original text,

Haz in ParaSol) in its immediate context, the middle column shows its

Blg. translation, and in the rightmost column we have added our

translation into English.

Corpus: pavichazar

English translationBCS Blg.218 Hazari su nezavisno i moćno pleme, ratnički i nomadski narod koji je u neizvesna vremena došao s Istoka , gonjen nekakvom vrelom tišinom , i u razdoblju od VII do Xveka naseljavao kopnoizmeđu dva mora :

Хазарите били независимои силно племе, войнственномадски народ , в неизвестни времена дошълот Изток гонен от някаква пареща тишина , и в промеждутъка от VI до X век населявал сушата между две морета :

‘The Khazars were an independent and strongtribe, a warlike nomadic people that came from the East during an unknown period, chased by someburning silence, and who inhabited the landbetween two seas between the seventh and tenth centuries.’

814 Godine 1117 došlisu neki Hazari u Kijev knezu VladimiruMonomahu.

В 1117 година някакви хазари дошли в Киев при княз Владимир Мономах.

‘In 1117, some Khazarscame to Kyiv to PrinceVladimir Monomakh.’

Table 2: Corpus sample5 According to RBE (1984: 353–360), the imperfective form of dojda is doxoždam ordoxaždam; however, because both imperfective forms are somewhat archaic, in ouranalysis we have treated idvam as the imperfective equivalent of dojda followingcontemporary Bulgarian usage norms and in line with more recent sources such asSTRBE (1994), Fetvadžieva (2000), Onlinerechnik, and others.

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In the corpus sample in Table 2, BCS and Blg. use doći and dojda,

confirming what dictionary descriptions (e.g., Stojanov 2011) and random

collections of language data suggest: these verbs are perfect or near-

perfect equivalents; they share the same stem and seem to be used as

translation equivalents in a large number of similar contexts. However,

our study reveals a different situation. In our corpus, there are

considerably fewer correspondences in the use of doći and dojda in BCS and

Blg. than we expected. Table 3 presents our results in numbers, showing

that 44% of the BCS instances of doći in our corpus are not translated

with the Blg. verb dojda.

Source: Number of examples with doći

doći = dojda doći = anotherverb or phrase*

*of these:doći = stigna(nastigna, pristigna)

1. Čudnovate zgode šegrta Hlapića

72 36 36 18

2. Foliranti 19 16 3 2

3. Hazarski rečnik

96 54 42 22

4. PovratakFilipa Latinovicza

54 29 25 7

5. Prokleta avlija

27 12 15 7

6. Provincijalac

23 17 6 1

Total 291 164 127 57

Table 3: Results for doći (pf.)

2. ANALYSIS

2.1 THE SEMANTICS OF DOĆI = DOJDA

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We outline the semantics of doći = dojda on the basis of the parallel

examples in which we found both verbs to be perfect equivalents. Doći and

dojda are the prototypical examples of motion verbs prefixed by do- ‘(up)

to’. These do-verbs in motion context illustrate the to schema,

expressing motion in space towards a goal, as shown in Figure 1. The

meaning of do-verbs involves a path and is presented as a trajector (TR)

moving towards a landmark (LM),6 often an LM-boundary.

Do-

The To Schema: Motion in space towards a goal

Figure 1. The prototypical meaning of do-, the to schema

The to schema applies to motion up to a certain border, be it an entity’s

self-propelled motion or caused motion. The do- pattern is very

productive in BCS and Blg., especially with verbs indicating self-motion

of animate entities (e.g., BCS/Blg. doletjeti/dolitam ‘fly up to’).

Doći and dojda are employed in spatial scenarios with concrete or

abstract moving objects (TRs; illustrated in (1)–(2)) that move to and

reach concrete or abstract locations (landmarks). Whereas example (1)

illustrates the concrete motion of animate entities in physical space

towards a concrete spatial location (a town), example (2) illustrates

metaphorical motion of an abstract entity towards a human LM. The fictive

motion metaphorically represents a mental activity: the metaphorical

arrival of an idea, thought, or revelation.

6 We use the terms “trajector” (TR) and “landmark” (LM) following standardpractice in cognitive linguistics; for example, Langacker (2008: 70 ff.). TR (or“figure”) is the focus element in a spatial relation, and LM (or “ground”) isthe background element. The location or motion of the TR is characterized interms of its relation to the LM.

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LM TR

(1) a. Godine 1117 došli su neki Hazari u Kijev knezu Vladimiru

Monomahu. (Haz)7

b. В 1117 година някакви хазари дошли в Киев при княз Владимир

Мономах.

‘In 1117 some Khazars came to Kyiv to Prince Vladimir Monomakh.’

(2) a. Voleo je da kaže da mu je to prosvetljenje došlo u času kad mu

se jedna mušica udavila u oku . . . (Haz)

b. Обичал да казва, че това просветление му дошло, когато една

мушица се удавила в окото му . . .

‘He used to say that the epiphany came to him when a fly drowned in

his eye . . .’

The parallel corpus examples revealed several interesting issues related

to the semantic relation of doći and dojda, which we discuss in the

following sections. The first issue is the semantic relation of BCS doći

and Blg. stigna and its prefixed forms.

2.2 BCS DOĆI VERSUS BLG. STIGNA, PRISTIGNA IN CONCRETE MOTION CONTEXTS AND ABSTRACT

CONTEXTS (PHRASAL EXPRESSIONS)

In a considerable number of examples, doći is rendered by a verb with a

different stem. In 57 of 127 examples (45%) in which doći is not rendered

by dojda, the choice in Blg. is stigna ‘arrive, reach’ or prefixed verbs

derived from stigna (e.g., pristigna ‘arrive’, nastigna ‘catch up with’). BCS

has a verb with the identical stem, stići/stignuti. In their primary meaning,

‘to arrive at a goal of motion’, stići/stignuti and doći function as synonyms

in BCS (see, e.g., HJP). The same applies to Blg. stigna and dojda. In its

other meanings—‘catch smb. up’, ‘manage, cope, find time’, and ‘happen

(to one)’—BCS stići/stignuti cannot be replaced by doći. In Blg., some of the7 Throughout the article, BCS original sentences are provided in (a) andBulgarian translations in (b). The lemmas are underlined for easier reference.As a rule, the English translation follows the original text; the differencesbetween the original and the English translation are discussed wheneverrelevant.

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non-spatial meanings of stigna can also be expressed with dojda as in BCS

(e.g., stignax/dojdox do izvoda ‘reach a conclusion’), whereas other non-

spatial meanings cannot be expressed with dojda (or with dojda alone), and

require idiomatic expressions instead—for example, nastigna go neštastie

(literally, ‘a misfortune reached him’) or neštastie mu dojde na glavata’

(literally, ‘a misfortune came to his head’), in which bad events are

perceived as self-moving entities that reach a person.

Examples (3)–(4) illustrate concrete spatial scenarios in which a

frequent choice for BCS doći is stigna, pristigna in Blg.

(3) a. Tamo dakako ni Marko ni Hlapić ne bi nikad mogli doci. (ŠH)

b. Там, разбира се, нито Марко, нито Хлапич изобщо можеха да

стигнат.

‘Of course, neither Marko nor Hlapić could ever go8 there.’

(4) a. Iste godine vizantijskom caru Mihailu III stiglo je poslanstvo.

(Haz)

b. Същата година при византийския цар Михаил III дошла мисия.

‘That same year, a mission came to Byzantine Emperor Michael III.’

In (3), BCS could also use stići (. . . ne bi nikad mogli stići). In Blg., it

is also possible to use dojda when the motion is towards the speaker’s or

listener’s location. In contrast, the use of stigna in (3) expresses a

more general meaning of reaching a destination. We have also found dojda

in contexts in which BCS originals use stići, as (4) shows. Although Blg.

pristigam ‘reach’ (focusing on reaching the goal) and otivam ‘go’

(highlighting moving away from source) would also be quite natural in

(4b), the translator makes a more marked choice by using dojda, thus

adopting a first- or second-person perspective when talking about a third

party in order to focus on this third party and its potential importance

in the following parts of the narrative. This use of dojda signals

8 The English translations in examples such as (3) and (5) sound better with goand got, respectively, but the verb used in the original BCS texts is doći.

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movement towards an entity that is the focal point of the sentence, and

was identified as early as 1894 by the “grandfather of Bulgarian

lexicography,” Najden Gerov, who asserted that the orientation of dojda

is towards the place mentioned (doxoždam) or being talked about (dojda).9

It seems that BCS stići and doći, in one of their meanings in concrete

motion contexts, are intra-language synonyms (the same applies to stigna

and dojda in Blg.), and inter-language synonyms in the relation between

BCS and Blg.

BCS doći in phrasal expressions is frequently translated into Blg.

with stigna, as in example (5). In BCS, stići would sound awkward in contexts

such as (5), whereas in Blg. dojda does not seem appropriate in this

context with a human subject that is also the doer of the action and that

ended up having trouble with the law (compare the impersonal expression

stigna se do sblâsâk sâs zakona ‘it came to a conflict with the law’, which does

not explicitly mention who got in trouble with the law). Thus, in Blg. it

does not seem possible to present ‘a conflict with a law’ as a

metaphorical goal that someone reaches, an image that the BCS original

suggests.

Another frequent correspondence of BCS doći and Blg. stigna occurs in

abstract contexts; for example, in phrasal expressions in which BCS doći

means ‘happen’. Thus, BCS frequently uses doći do X in impersonal

constructions to express that X happened, as in (6)–(7). BCS stići cannot

be used in the meaning ‘happen’ as can Bulgarian stigna. In Blg., the

impersonal construction with the reflexive particle se, the verb stigna,

and the preposition do, describing the escalation of a situation in (6),

or a conflict or a fight between people in (7) and (13) below, can be9 We are grateful to one of our reviewers for making this observation andproviding a great example from the Bulgarian National Corpus: Kogato se otvorivăzmožnost, nezabavno šte dojdem tam, kădeto njakoj iska da čue našata muzika. ‘When there is apossibility, we’ll immediately go (literally, come) where someone wants to hearour music.’ As example (4) indicates, this meaning can occur also when the verbis in the third person, non-present tense, even when the reported (преизказен)aorist form of the verb is used to convey someone else’s utterance; in thiscase, most likely an imaginary historian rendering a witness’ account of eventsin an imaginary emperor’s court (we owe this comment to the same reviewer andNadežda Kostova).

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replaced with the similar but somewhat archaic impersonal construction

dojde se do ‘it came to.’10

(5) a. младић је брзо упао у сумњиве послове и дрске подвиге свога

друштва и дошао у сукоб са законом. (PA)

b. младежът бързо се заплел в съмнителните сделки и дръзките

подвизи на своите другари и стигнал до конфликт със закона.

‘the young man quickly got involved into the dark deals and daring

deeds of his friends, and got in trouble with the law.’

(6) a. Došlo je do borbe (PA)

b. Стигнало се до борба.

‘It came to a fight.’

(7) a. Prvi put od njegova povratka došlo je između njega i majke do

vrlo žestoke prepirke. (PFL)

b. За пръв път, откакто се беше върнал, между Филип и майка му се

стигна до много ожесточена разправия.

‘For the first time since his return, he got into a very heated

argument with his mother.’

(8) a. došao je na genijalnu ideju (Haz)

b. стигнал до гениалната идея

‘аn ingenious idea came to his mind’

(9) a. tekst rečnika do kojeg sam ja došao (Haz)

b. текстът на речника, до който стигнах аз

‘the dictionary text which I got hold of’

In a similar way, in (8) BCS uses doći whereas the Blg. translation uses

stigna. It is also possible to use dojda in Blg. (e.g., dojde mu genialna ideja

‘an ingenious idea came to his mind’) based on the conventional metaphor

that ideas travel (i.e., the idea is the moving TR), but it is not as

natural or frequent in Blg. to say toj dojde do genialnata ideja ‘he came to an

10 Even so, in informal spoken Bulgarian, the impersonal expression with stigna ismore likely to occur than the one with dojda; for example, Stigna se do goljama razpravija‘This led to a big fight / a big fight occurred.’

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ingenious idea’ in which the person is the moving TR and the idea is

perceived as a LM, goal, or destination. BCS cannot use stići in (8);

however, stići is possible, although it would be less natural in BCS, in

example (9), whereas dojda is not a felicitous verb in Blg. in contexts

referring to finding or discovering something.

In idiomatic and phrasal expressions and collocations, BCS

regularly uses doći in contexts in which Blg. uses either stigna (e.g., BCS

došao u sukob sa zakonom = Blg. stignal do konflikt săs zakona ‘got in trouble with

the law’ as in (5)), or another verb (e.g., BCS dođe na san = Blg. javi se

nasǎn). Sentences (10)–(13) present more examples of the latter type. For

example, in (10) the Blg. translation uses the expression vlizam v spor

‘argue, start arguing’ with the verb vlizam ‘enter’ to render inchoative

nuances of meaning. Dojda cannot be used in this context; however, the

impersonal expression dojde se do can be used (see also (13)). BCS can also

use a verb equivalent to vlizam, ući (pf.) or ulaziti (impf.) instead of doći

(see (10a)) without any significant meaning modification (. . . bi ušli u

sukob).

(10) a. One s kojima bi došli u sukob, gledali bi po svaku cenu da

naniže i prokunu. (Haz)

b. Гледали на всяка цена да наругаят и прокълнат онези, с които

влизали в спор.

‘They would try at all costs to downgrade and curse those with whom

they came11 into conflict.’

(11) a. Između mene i nje došlo je do ozbiljnog razgovora. (PFL)

b. Между мен и нея имаше сериозен разговор.

‘There was a serious conversation between us.’

(12) a. Filipu je došlo da uzme rubac i da mahne letećem stroju na

pozdrav! (PFL)

11 In the more abstract contexts of (10)–(13), BCS doći is translated into Englishwith a range of verbs such as come, be, and want.

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b. у Филип се събуди желание да вземе кърпичка, да я размаха, за да

поздрави летящата машина!

‘Filip wanted to take the handkerchief and wave good-bye to the

flying machine!’

(13) a. . . . jer je u arapskom kalifatu došlo do sukoba dve dinastije -

Omajida i Abasida. (Haz)

b. . . . защото в арабския халифат се дошло до сблъсък между двете

династии - на Омаидите и Абасидите.

‘ . . . because in the Arab caliphate it came to a clash of two

dynasties—the Umayyads and the Abbasids.’

When BCS doći is used in idiomatic and phrasal expressions to refer to

the occurrence of a communicative event such as a talk or an argument

(e.g., došlo je do razgovora ‘happen, start’ in (11)), Blg. cannot use dojda.

By contrast, when BCS expressions with doći refer to wants and desires

(e.g., došlo (mu je) da ‘he wanted to’ as in (12)), Blg. also has

equivalents with dojda: the colloquial or emphatic expression dojde mu

(želanie) da ‘he felt like (doing)’. However, the translator selected a

more stylistically neutral Blg. expression in example (12).

In Blg., an impersonal expression with dojda is also possible in

examples such as (13), which explains why we found occasional

correspondences (e.g., došlo do sukoba = се дошло до сблъсък in (13). The

impersonal Blg. construction in (13) with the reflexive particle se, the

verb dojda, and the preposition do is similar to the BCS construction with

doći and, as stated earlier for sentences (6)–(7), can be used for the

emergence of conflicts, fights, arguments, and the like.

Our data exhibit systematic differences between BCS idiomatic and

phrasal expressions with doći such as doći u priliku ‘get a chance’, doći u

kontakt ‘establish contact, meet’, došlo je do razgovora ‘happen, start’ as in

(11), and their Blg. equivalents that do not use dojda in similar

contexts. In some cases, our corpus contained BCS expressions like došlo

(mu je) da ‘he wanted to’ (as in (12)), došlo je vrijeme ‘the time has come’,

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and so on, in which Blg. has equivalent expressions with dojda; for

example, dojde mu (želanie) da ‘he felt like (doing)’, and dojde vreme za ‘the

time has come for / it’s time to’. The Blg. equivalents, however, are

either colloquial or emphatic, and in similar corpus contexts the

translators have selected more stylistically neutral expressions.

2.3 DIFFERENT CONSTRUALS OF MOTION EVENTS

Sometimes the verbs used in our parallel examples reveal different

construals of motion events. In a number of examples, one language

provides more details about the motion event than the other. BCS doći

often functions as a generalized motion verb. It can be used, for

instance, for vehicles, and it can replace many verbs of specific manners

of motion. In our parallel corpus, BCS occasionally uses doći whereas Blg.

uses a semantically more specific verb, specifying motion in more detail;

for instance, motion into a container in (14), upward motion in (15), and

motion out of a container-like object in (16). The Blg. translation in

(17b) implies ‘settle down’, whereas the Blg. verb used in (18) meaning

‘get to’ implies more effort than the phrase doći do in the original. In

(19b), doći is also rendered by a more specific motion verb meaning

‘return, come back’.

(14) a. došao sam u svoje telo (Haz)

b. влязох у тялото си

‘I came into my body’

(15) a. Kad su došli gore (ŠH)

b. Когато се качиха горе

‘When they came up(stairs)’

(16) a. došao dolje na ulicu (ŠH)

b. излезе долу на улицата

‘he came down onto the street’

(17) a. Где год дође са својим завежљајем (PA)

b. където и да се настани със своя вързоп.12

‘Wherever he arrives with his bundle’

(18) a. не заустављају се ни пред чим, само да би дошли до отрова (PA)

b. и не се спират пред нищо, за да се доберат до отровата

‘they stop at nothing just to get the poison’

(19) a. Ocu da je ponestalo voska i da će doci odmah (PFL)

b. На бащата се свършил восъкът и той излязъл, като казал, че ще се

върне веднага.

‘The father ran out of wax and he went out saying he would be right

back.’

Interestingly, there are some cases in which BCS original sentences use

construals without a motion verb, whereas the Blg. translation contains

dojda. For example, BCS dobili su gosta (PA) ‘they got a guest’ construes an

event emphasizing the beneficiary with the verb dobiti ‘get’, whereas the

Blg. translation, дойде им гост (literally, ‘a guest came to them’) uses a

construction with the dative pronoun and the verb dojda in a dynamic

construal involving motion. It must be pointed out, however, that doći is

also possible in BCS in a construction semantically similar to dobili su

gosta, which is structurally very similar to the Blg. one (BCS došao im je

gost ‘a guest came to them’).

2.4 BCS DOĆI IN ABSTRACT, METAPHORICAL CONTEXTS VERSUS ANOTHER VERB IN BLG.

BCS doći occurs in some abstract, metaphorical contexts in which Blg.

uses another verb. In these contexts, doći implies ‘seem’, ‘appear’; for

instance, in (20b) in which Blg. uses an explicit verb of metaphorical

appearance meaning ‘appear, show up’,12 whereas in (21b) the Blg. verb

means ‘seem’. It is not possible to use dojda in either context.

(20) a. ona mu dođe preobražena sasvim (Haz)

12 BCS can use javiti se ‘appear’ in examples such as (20). However, javiti se wouldimply a less vivid image and merely suggest a metaphorical presence of her(ona), whereas doći can apply to a metaphorical and concrete presence.

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b. Тя му се явила съвсем преобразена

‘she appeared to him completely transformed’

(21) a. Фра-Петру, који је у свом веку видео много болесника сваке

врсте, дође одједном све то познато (PA)

b. През живота си фра Петър беше виждал страдащи от най-различни

болести и това лице изведнъж му се стори познато.

‘All that seemed familiar to Friar Petar, who had seen all kinds of

patients in his life.’

2.5 OPPOSITE CONSTRUALS OF MOTION EVENTS

This situation implies that BCS doći is sometimes rendered by a Blg. verb

expressing a seemingly antonymous relation, otida (pf.) / otivam (impf.) 13

‘go (away)’, as in (22), or that BCS otići ‘leave’ is sometimes rendered

by Blg. dojda, as in (23). As examples (22)–(27) show, all of our sources

contained single cases of opposite construals of motion events in which

the goal-oriented verb doći/dojda ‘come, arrive’, which emphasizes arrival

at a destination, is rendered by the source-oriented verb otići/otivam

‘leave’, which emphasizes leaving a spatial location.

Translating a verb meaning ‘come’ with a verb meaning ‘leave’ and

vice versa is possible because in a motion scenario arriving at a spatial

goal implies leaving a spatial location. Leaving and arriving seem to be

a conceptual unity. In language coding of motion events, we explicitly

focus on certain parts of the motion path; however, other parts can be

easily activated even though they are backgrounded. Therefore, the choice

of a given verb in each context simply represents one of several possible

points of view.14

13 The perfective form otida ‘go’ can be shortened to ida. Confusingly, theimperfective verb idvam ‘come’ also has an equivalent form ida. Dictionaries listthese forms as ida2 (= ‘go’) and ida1 (= ‘come’), respectively (RBE 1990: 33–42).14 Further research into the semantics of Blg. and BCS verbs of coming and goingis needed in order to explain the choices made in our examples in relation tothe notion of “deictic center” (the location of the speaker or the addressee) inthe meaning of these verbs, and deictic projection (a speaker’s ability toimaginatively “project” to some remote location). Goddard (1997: 158–160) argues

14

(22) a. došavši u tuđinu, osiromaši (Haz)

b. Като отиде у чужбина, обедня

‘Having arrived in a foreign country, he became impoverished’

(23) a. ubio [ga] i otišao da večera (Haz)

b. Убил го и дойде на вечеря

‘he killed him and went for supper’

(24) a. Došao neko veče u krčmu kod Siebenscheina i razbio Štijefu

Brezovečkom flašom glavu . . . (PFL)

b. Оная вечер отишъл в кръчмата при Зибенщайн и с бутилка счупил

главата на Шефо Брезовечки . . .

‘That night he came into Siebenschein’s tavern and broke Štijef

Brezovečki's head with a bottle . . .’

(25) a. Boba ne putuje, Boba otklanja novčanu uslugu, ona je spriječena

da dođe, ni u kavanu ne će doci . . . (PFL)

b. Боба няма да заминава, Боба отказва паричната услуга, тя е

възпрепятствувана да дойде, в кафенето също няма да отиде . . .

‘Boba is not leaving; Boba is refusing the monetary favor; she

won’t be able to come; she is not coming to the café either . . .’

(26) a. Gita dođe k Hlapiću. (ŠH)

b. Гита отиде при Хлапич.

‘Gita went over to Hlapić.’

(27) a. Gde dođe, tu svađu i omrazu stvara (PA)

b. Където отиде, кавги и омраза всява.

‘Wherever s/he comes, s/he brings about quarrels and hatred.’

that the capacity of English come to support a “deictic projection”—that is, tosuggest a point of view of someone other than the speaker himself or herself—relates to the fact that come in its lexical meaning refers to a subjectivepoint of view of an implied person, be it the speaker, addressee, or even athird person; that is, X came to place A entails the component “someone in thisplace could think: X is in the same place as me” (Goddard 1997: 160). Some ofour examples indicate that Blg. and BCS dojda/doći also entail the component thatGoddard (1997) postulates for the English verb come, but further research isneeded for any definite conclusions.

15

2.6 DOJDA IS USED IN BLG. TRANSLATION, DOĆI IS NOT USED IN THE ORIGINAL

Dojda is sometimes used in Blg. translation in situations in which doći

is not used in the original, as in (28a)-(28b). In Section 2.2 we

examined the contexts in which Blg. stigna/pristigna is used for BCS

doći. Examples (28a)-(28b) illustrate the opposite case: dojda is

used as the translation equivalent of stići.In addition to stići, in Haz for instance, dojda is used in contexts

in which BCS uses some other motion verbs with a more specific meaning

(e.g., preći ‘transfer; cross’, prići ‘come closer’, dojahati ‘ride to’, nastupiti

‘appear’, naići ‘come upon’). As discussed in Section 2.5, Blg. dojda is also

used as the translation equivalent of otići ‘leave’ (in Haz and in other

sources). Furthermore, the Blg. translation uses dojda (e.g., дошъл до

заключението ‘reach a conclusion’, Haz) for the BCS verb of mental

activity zaključiti ‘conclude’ found in the original; however, BCS also has

an equivalent expression with doći; that is, doći do zaključka ‘reach a

conclusion’.

Examples (29)–(33) illustrate some recurring situations. In (29),

the original does not explicitly use a motion verb, although motion is

implied (prespava . . . do te foringe; literally, ‘sleep until that cart’).

The Blg. translation using dojda makes the implied motion explicit. In

(30), the construal of the motion event expressed with dojda is opposite

the one found in the original, odem ‘go away’ (see Section 2.5). In

(31), BCS uses a more specific motion verb (prijeći ‘transfer’) emphasizing

transition from a spatial point A to a spatial point B in the context of

a person moving to a new location and starting a new job.

(28) a. Spas je stigao u zvižduku vaspitačeve pištaljke. (Pro)

b. Спасението дойде с писъка на възпитателската свирка.

‘the rescue came in (the form of) the piercing noise of the

supervisor’s whistle.’

16

(29) a. Još je bila jedna mogućnost: da telegrafira u Kostanjevec po

kola i da prespava u kaptolskom hotelu do te foringe kostanjevecke.

(PFL)

b. Имаше още една възможност: да телеграфира в Костаневец за каруца

и да остане да спи в каптолския хотел, докато дойде тази каруца от

Костаневец.

‘There was another possibility: to send a telegraph to Kostanjevec

ordering a cart and to stay in the Kaptol hotel until the cart from

Kostanjevec arrives.’

(30) a. I onda me je poslala, da odem do vas i da vam kažem, da ona

ostaje, i da je njoj dobro sa mnom! (PFL)

b. И после ме изпрати да дойда до вас и да ви кажа, че тя остава и

че й е добре с мен.

‘Then he sent me to go to your place and tell you that she was

going to stay with me, and that she feels good when she is with

me.’

(31) a. . . . debela Karolina, koja jo kao udovica prešla u njenu

službu, masirala ju je poslije jutarnje kupelji po čitavu uru.

(PFL)

b. . . . а дебелата Каролина, която, вече вдовица, бе дошла да

прислужва при нея, по цял час й правеше масажи след утринното

къпане.

‘. . . the fat Karolina who as a widow has come to work as her

maid, and gave her hour-long massages after the morning shower.’

(32) a. sačekuje tursku konjicu da mu priđe sasvim blizu (Pro)

b. изчаква турската конница да му дойде съвсем наблизо

‘he was waiting for the Turkish cavalry to come really close’

(33) a. No kad je taj čovjek došao blizu, pristupio je k meni i počeo

razvezivati konopac kojim sam bio svezan. (ŠH)

b. Но когато този човек се приближи, дойде до мен и започна да

развързва въжето, с което бях вързан.

17

‘But when this man came closer, he came to me and started to

disentangle the rope with which I was tied up.’

(34) a. Samo je Bundaš sjedio i gledao za vrtuljkom i čudio se sto li je

Hlapiću palo na pamet da se toliko okreće? Bilo je već jako kasno.

(ŠH)

b. Само Бундаш седеше и гледаше въртележката и се чудеше какво ли

му е дошло на ум на Хлапич, че толкова се върти?

‘Only Bundaš was standing there, looking at the merry-go-round and

wondering what had gotten into Hlapić’s mind that made him spin so

much.’

(35) a. А они још дуго не могу да се приберу. (PA)

b. А те дълго не могат да дойдат на себе си.

‘And these could not collect themselves for a long time.’

In (32a), BCS uses the verb prići ‘come closer’, translated with Blg. dojde

nablizo (32b), whereas in (33) it is the other way around: BCS uses doći blizu

‘come closer’ whereas the Blg. translation uses približavam ‘come closer’,

showing that these expressions are often interchangeable in both BCS and

Blg. In addition, (33a) contains yet another example when another motion

verb in BCS, pristupiti ‘come closer/step forward’, is translated with dojda

in Blg. (33b).

In (34)–(35), Blg. uses dojda in the translation of two BCS

idiomatic expressions. In these cases too, BCS could have used equivalent

expressions with doći: doći na um ‘get into one’s mind’ in (34) and doći k sebi

in (35). The construction doći k sebi is synonymous with the verb pribrati se;

both mean ‘come to, regain consciousness; collect oneself’. However, the

expression da dojda na sebe si ‘come to, regain consciousness’ and the verb

seemingly very similar to the BCS pribrati se, pribiram se ‘come home’ are not

synonymous in Blg.

2.7 DOĆI AS PART OF PHRASAL EXPRESSIONS VERSUS PREFIXED VERBS IN BLG.

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BCS sometimes uses doći as part of some phrasal expressions, whereas the

Blg. translation uses semantically similar verbs with other prefixes, as

examples (36)–(37) show. BCS has a verb synonymous with the expression

doći blizu / u blizinu, približiti se, also prefixed with pri-, that could have been

used in (36)–(37) without any significant meaning changes. As discussed

for examples (32)–(33), Blg. also has phrasal expressions such as da dojda

nablizo ‘come closer’, but this expression is most appropriate in

situations in which the moving entity is the speaker or listener, or the

moving entity if approaching either the listener or speaker.

(36) a. No kad je taj čovjek došao blizu . . . ((ŠH)

b. Но когато този човек се приближи . . .

‘But when that man came closer . . .’

(37) a. Već su kola došla u blizinu Hlapića i Gite. (ŠH)

b. Колата вече наближи до Хлапич и Гита.

‘The carriage came close to Hlapić and Gita.’

3. IMPERFECTIVE FORMS OF DOĆI/DOJDA

The imperfective counterpart of BCS doći is dolaziti. The exact Bulgarian

equivalent of BCS dolaziti and imperfective counterpart of dojda is doxoždam

or doxaždam (see footnote 5). However, this verb is used in only one

example in our corpus (see 38). Doxoždam or doxaždam are archaic and are

stylistically marked. Contemporary Bulgarian uses idvam in contexts in

which the imperfective form of dojda is required, and so we have followed

more recent sources and treated idvam as the imperfective counterpart of

dojda. In fact, in our corpus, idvam is the most frequent translation of

dolaziti, as illustrated by (39).

In individual cases, BCS doći (pf.) is translated by the Blg.

imperfective, as in (40). In addition, doći is used in some contexts with

the historical present tense in which Blg. translations use idva, as in

(41).

19

Although idvam is the most frequent choice, in some contexts Blg.

chooses another motion verb to render dolaziti. Relatively often, stigam,

pristigam is used, as in (42) (see Section 2.2). In (43), the BCS verb

dolaziti (expressing concrete and abstract motion) is rendered with the

verb proizlizam ‘descend from’, which is almost exclusively used for

abstract motion (here, related to difficulties and confusion).

(38) a. . . . и настојао да се свега што је »политичко«, или што под тим

именом до њега долази, отресе што пре. (PA)

b. . . . и се стараеше да се отърве колкото е възможно по-скоро от

всичко, което е «политическо» или което под такова име дохожда при

него.

‘ . . . and he tried to get rid of everything “political” or

everything that came to him under that name.’

(39) a. А сутрадан он је опет долазио, већ у рано јутро, као на

исповест. (PA)

b. А на другия ден пак идваше рано рано, като на изповед.

‘And he would come again the next morning, as though to

confession.’

(40) a. Čudilo me, jer otkada si ti tu, to je prvi put da je on došao k

tebi. (PFL)

b. Почудих се, защото, откакто си тук, той за пръв път идва при

теб.

‘I was wondering because, since you’ve been here, he came to you

for the first time.’

(41) a. И опет дође нека прича (PA)

b. И пак идва някой разказ.

‘And some story came again.’

(42) a. Vraćale su se emocije i dolazile jedna za drugom . . . (PFL)

b. Емоциите се връщаха, пристигаха една след друга . . .

‘The emotions were back, coming one after another . . .’

20

(43) a. Putnici beleže, opet, da su hazarska lica sva ista i da se nikad

ne menjaju i da otuda dolazi do teškoće i zabuna. (Haz)

b. Пътешественици пък отбелязват, че всички хазарски лица са

еднакви, никога не се променят и оттам произлизат затрудненията и

объркването.

‘Travelers note that all Khazar faces are the same, they never

change and that’s where the difficulties and confusion come from.’

(44) a. A netko, tko ubije samo jednog čovjeka, dolazi na vješala (PFL)

b. А някой, който убие само един човек, отива на бесилката!

‘And someone that has killed just one person goes straight to the

gallows.’

(45) a. Najprije i ne dolazi čitava dva dana, a sada hoće da se

konvencionalno izvuče . . . (PFL)

b. първо не се обажда цели два дена, а сега иска конвенционално да

се измъкне след няколко минути.

‘First he doesn’t show up for a whole two days, and now he wants to

get away as usual after just a few minutes.’

(46) a. I novine su dolazile, ali ih nije čitao (PFL).

b. Вестниците се получаваха, но той не ги четеше.

‘The newspapers kept coming, but he didn’t read them.’

(47) a. I onog jutra, kada se je bio vraćao ovim stubama kao pokajnik,

kao tat, koji je ukrao stotinjarku (a dolazi od bludnih i prljavih

pijanih žena) . . . (PFL)

b. И онази сутрин, когато се връщаше по тези стълби като разкаял се

грешник . . . (а се връщаше от блудни и мръсни, пияни жени) . . .

‘That morning when he was coming back up those stairs as a

repentant sinner . . . (and he was coming back from promiscuous,

dirty and drunk women) . . .’

(48) a. Još u vrtu čuo je neke čudne, nerazgo-vetne zvukove, koji kao da

su dolazili iz grla davno izumrlih životinja pri parenju (Pr)

b. Още от градината дочу някакви странни, неясни звуци, които сякаш

излизаха от гърлата на праисторически животни при съешаване

21

‘Already in the garden he heard some strange, indistinct voices

which sounded as if they were coming out the throats of pre-

historic animals mating.’

(49) a. U Čigrinim očima, Herceg pročita detinji strah i uplaši se da se

isto tako ne uplaši kada smrt bude njemu dolazila. (Pr)

b. В очите на Чигра Херцег прочете детински страх и се уплаши да не

би да се уплаши по същия начин, когато смъртта приближеше и към

него.

‘He saw the terror of a child in Čigra Herceg’s eyes and he feared

he may be terrified in the same way when death comes to him.’

(50) a. To kontemplativno uništavanje svega što mu dolazi pod ruku (PFL)

b. Това съзерцателно разнищване на всичко, което попадне под ръката

‘This contemplating destruction of everything he comes across.’

(51) a. Ali u snove mu ta ličnost dolazi redovno i kad Branković sanja,

on sanja nju. (Haz)

b. Но тя му се явява редовно насън и когато Бранкович сънува, той

сънува нея.

‘That person regularly appeared in his dreams and, when Branković

had a dream, he dreamed about her.’

(52) a. osim njega niko mi više i ne dolazi u snove. . . (Haz)

b. освен него никой вече не идва в сънищата ми . . .

‘Except him, no one else shows up in my dreams.’

In individual cases such as (44), antonyms are used (see also Section

2.5), and sometimes the translation chooses a non-motion verb, as in

(45)–(46).

Some examples show that BCS dolaziti functions as a generalized motion

verb in the original text, but its Blg. translations occasionally use

more specific motion verbs that specify manner of motion or provide more

details about the motion event; for example, vrǎštam se ‘come back’, izlizam

‘go out’, and približavam ‘come nearer’ in examples (47)–(49) (see also

22

Section 2.3), or an idiomatic expression with a motion verb; for example,

popadam pod rǎka ‘come across’ in (50).

BCS uses dolaziti (u snove) to express ‘appear (in dreams)’. In Blg.,

this meaning can be rendered with the verb javjavam se ‘show up, appear’,

as in (51), where it is used in conjunction with the dative pronoun mu

‘to him’ to express recipient (and, by extension, location; i.e. this

person’s dreams). Alternatively, as (52) shows, dojda (imperfective idvam

for repeated events) can be used because of its inherent goal orientation

and ability to refer to an entity or location that is in focus.

4. CONCLUSIONS

The main question we tried to address in this article the extent to which

the cognate BCS and Blg. verbs doći and dojda align in meaning.15 In a

large number of our parallel examples, BCS doći is not translated with

Blg. dojda. Although doći and dojda are perfect equivalents in many

examples referring to concrete spatial motion, the differences we

analyzed suggest that Blg. dojda has developed a narrower meaning

specialization. Dojda is the prototypical deictic verb with the meaning

‘come’, expressing movement towards a goal that usually coincides with

the speaker’s and/or listener’s location either at the time of speaking

or at the time of reference (past or future), or, by extension, with the

speaker’s and/or listener’s traditional location.16 In addition, dojda can15 We used BCS sources translated into Bulgarian only, and not Blg. sourcestranslated into BCS, and so our conclusions are preliminary and apply only totranslations of doći/dolaziti into Blg. An analysis of dojda/idvam and theirtranslations into BCS has to be left for future research: it requires adifferent corpus and could reveal different findings (e.g., an additional set ofBulgarian meanings not represented in BCS) than our study did. More research isalso needed on how the Blg. and BCS verbs dojda/doći relate to the “deicticcentre,” “deictic projection,” “subject of the narrative,” and what Goddardterms an “egocentric interpretation of X’s final location by an ‘unidentifiedsomeone in this place’” that interprets X’s final location as “X is in the sameplace as me” (Goddard 1997: 159). Goddard assumes a great relevance of this“egocentric interpretation” for the semantics of the English verb come.16 An example of traditional location is provided in Fetvadžieva (2000): Včeradojdox u vas, no teb te njamaše. ‘I went (literally, came) to your place yesterday, butyou were not there’, in which the movement is towards the place where the

23

express movement whose orientation is not related to the speaker’s or

hearer’s location; instead, the movement is towards an entity or a

location that is the focal point of an utterance or sentence. In

contrast, BCS doći has developed the meaning of a generalized motion verb,

expressing movement to or towards a goal (e.g., going out, going down,

returning, coming nearer, appearing, etc.), which far more often than its

Blg. counterpart refers to a goal other than the speaker and/or listener.

The metaphorical extensions of doći and/or dojda (e.g., meaning ‘take a

deep breath’, ‘come to one’s senses, etc.) have followed similar

patterns. However, when creating scenes in which things are happening to

someone, the Blg. verb dojda implies more often than BCS doći that these

things are happening to the speaker and/or listener.

Our corpus suggests that BCS doći exhibits a wider range of meanings

than does Blg. dojda; for example, doći means ‘come, arrive, reach, get

to, happen, appear, show up, occur’ and so on. Nonetheless, because both

BCS doći and Blg. dojda can refer to movement towards locations other than

those of the listener and/or speaker and to events happenings to entities

other than the listener and/or speaker, and BCS doći can, of course,

refer to movement towards the listener and/or speaker, there is a

considerable meaning overlap. Figure 2 presents this schematically.

addressee is expected to be and/or is usually located.24

Figure 2: Comparison of the meanings of BCS doći and Blg. dojda in ourcorpus

Figure 2 indicates that the set of entities arriving at a location, any

location (in the concrete, spatial sense), and the set of things

happening in the world (in the metaphorical sense), expressed by BCS

doći, subsumes the set of entities usually arriving at the speaker and/or

listener’s location, or the location in focus, and things most often

happening to the speaker or listener, expressed by Blg. dojda.

Unlike dictionaries, which provide lists of meanings in isolation,

parallel corpora (even small ones such as the corpus used in this study)

reveal the systematic differences between semantically similar units such

as BCS doći and Blg. dojda in a clear and straightforward way because

context disambiguates relevant elements in a scene.

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References:

Fetvadžieva, Stefka (2000). “Semantika i pragmatika na idvam, otivam i

xodja.” Bălgarski ezik i literatura (elektronna versija), 2000: 3–4; Elektronno spisanie

LiterNet, 2001:5 (18).

Goddard, Cliff (1997). “The semantics of coming and going.” Pragmatics

7(2): 147–162.

HJP = Hrvatski jezični portal. http://hjp.novi-liber.hr/

Langacker, Ronald W. (2008). Cognitive grammar: A basic introduction. New York:

Oxford University Press.

Onlinerechnik = http://www.onlinerechnik.com (accessed Jan. 19, 2014)

RBE 1990 = Rečnik na bălgarskija ezik. Tom 6, “I–J” (1990). Sofia: Bălgarska

akademija na naukite, Akademično izdatelstvo “Prof. Marin Drinov.”

RBE 1984 = Rečnik na bălgarskija ezik. Tom 4, “Dejatelen–E” (1984). Sofia: Bălgarska

akademija na naukite, Akademično izdatelstvo “Prof. Marin Drinov.”

Stojanov, Harry (2011). Hrvatsko-bugarski rječnik. Varna: Softis.

STRBE = Săvremenen tălkoven rečnik na bălgarskija ezik s iljustracii i priloženija (1994).

Veliko Tarnovo: Izdatelstvo “Elpis.”

Primary sources: BCS literary texts and their Bulgarian translations

Andrić, Ivo: Prokleta avlija (1954) // Прокълнатият двор. (translated by Lilija Kackova, 1976).

Brlić-Mažuranić, Ivana: Čudnovate zgode šegrta Hlapića (1913) // Чудните приключения на чирака Хлапич (translated by Hari Stojanov, 2011).

Kapor, Momo: Foliranti (1975) // Фолиранти (translated by Hari Stojanov, 1983).

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Kapor, Momo: Provincijalac (1976) // Провинциалист (translated by Hari Stojanov, 1984).

Krleža, Miroslav: Povratak Filipa Latinovicza (1932) // Завръщането на Филип Латинович (translated by Sijka Račeva 1966).

Pavić, Milorad: Hazarski rečnik (1984) // Хазарски речник (translated by Hristiana Vasileva, 1989).

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Author Contact Information

Ljiljana ŠarićDepartment of Literature, Area Studies and European LanguagesUniversity of OsloBox 1003, BlindernNO-0315 OsloNorwayljiljana.saric@ilos.uio.no

Ivelina TchizmarovaDepartment of LinguisticsSimon Fraser University8888 University Dr.Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6Canadaitchizmarova@sfu.ca

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